Tiki Tour
by MariaShadow
Summary: G1The story behind Jazz and Hound's little road trip in 'Treasured', a.k.a one big, shameless plug for my corner of the world


Tiki tour

"Introducing Jazz and Hound, back from the Great Autobot Tiki Tour of 2001!" Jazz beamed, striding into the common room with Hound.

Conversations stopped in mid word and shocked silence reigned as several dozen optics latched themselves to the newly returned Autobots. Sideswipe found his voice first. "Dude…what happened to your faces?" he managed.

Jazz crossed his arms in mock irritation. "Hey man, don't diss the moko. This here is the sign of a warrior." He replied, pointing to the spiraling green patterns painted across and around both his and Hound's faces.

"So, aside from playin' with face paint, what else did y'all git upto?" Ironhide queried.  
"Only one of the best road trips around." Hound grinned. "You wouldn't believe the scenery out there! We pretty much visited all of the major filming sites for Lord of the Rings. The sunrise at Edoras was unmissable!"  
"Hound took so many holograms I thought he was gonna over-fill his memory storage." Jazz teased.  
"I could have taken hundreds more and still had space." Hound grinned. "We visited the spots for Xena, Hercules, and that horror flick Peter Jackson made that the twins are so fond of."

"Braindead." Sunstreaker interrupted.

"Yeah, that one." Hound started pulling items out of subspace. "And we got plenty of souvenirs too. I've recorded some birdcalls for you Beachcomber." he said, giving the minibot an audiodisk. "There's tui, fantail, kiwi, bellbirds and a few others. And I've got some seeds for your garden too."  
"Hey, thanks man." The blue dunebuggy said happily, taking the disk and seed packets.

"No problem, the dawn chorus was fantastic." The jeep grinned, dropping various souvenirs on a table as he talked. "We popped in at Three Foot Six and Weta Workshops. The folks there gave us some autographed movie posters, a couple of Orc masks and this." He passed around a very well done photo manipulation showing Jazz and Hound standing behind the nine members of the fellowship at the secret council in Rivendell.

"Ha, nice one!" Trailbreaker laughed.

"Yeah. An' while ol' nature boy here was plungin' down the Southern Alps with a pack o' crazy off-roading enthusiasts, I checked out th' jazz festival in Christchurch an' the opera." Jazz added. "Man, were those some sweet tunes. I know where I'll be headed once I get a proper dint o' time off."

"Hey, I heard that there were lots of sheep in New Zealand, like, wandering around in the cities and stuff. And wild people living up in the hills in little huts. Is that true?" Bluestreak asked.  
"Th' only sheep we saw were in th' countryside. An' the only people in th' hills were th' farmers, th' hikers an' the Department of Conservation staff." Jazz replied. "'Fraid that's just a couple o' urban legends 'bout Aotearoa."  
"Aote-what?" Prowl asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar syllables.  
"Aotearoa." Jazz repeated, pronouncing it 'AA-o-TE-ah-ro-AH'. "Means 'Land o' th' Long White Cloud. It's th' Maori name for the place, Maori bein' th' people livin' there when th' Europeans arrived. Speakin' o' which, we got hooked up some neat stuff while we were down in Taupo. I'm tellin' ya, the lake there is big enough t' be Omega's divin' pool. Ah, here they are."

With a flourish, he summoned two carved wooden items from subspace. One was a short spear-like weapon, but one end flattened out into a rounded blade. The other was a broad and flat club of some sort, shaped into a stylised figure-eight shape with sharp edges. "This here is a taiaha an' a patu respectively." Jazz explained. "They carved 'em outta kauri wood an' inlaid 'em with paua shell fer us. Nasty lil' suckers, but pretty effective." He said as they were passed around.

The twins hefted the two weapons, then cast a querying look in Wheeljack's direction. Ratchet immediately guessed what they were thinking. "Not a slaggin' chance." He growled. "You two have enough toys at your disposal. You don't need more."  
"Who says we were going to ask?" Sideswipe protested, hands spread in a veritable picture of innocence.  
"I know you." The medic replied dangerously.

"What else didja get up to?" Trailbreaker asked, heading off another session of verbal tennis between the Lamborghinis and the medic.

Hound grinned and held up one hand to project a movie-style hologram on the back wall. Jazz groaned theatrically, one hand clapped over his visor. "Aww no, not the kea!" He moaned.  
"Th' what?" Ironhide asked.  
"Big green mountain parrots with a taste fer rubber an' a few too smarts fer their own good." Jazz explained dourly. "_Somebody_," he paused to throw a pointed look at Hound, "thought that it'd be a good idea t' stay overnight at Mt Hutt t' watch th' sunrise."

"I wonder who that could have been?" Hound asked innocently, grinning from audio to audio as he started the hologram.

The slightly shaky image, obviously taken from Hound's perspective, was a view of a snow-edged carkpark in the pre-dawn dark, high up on a mountainside. Jazz's vehicle mode was visible in the gloom, the Porsche apparently taking his turn to recharge while Hound kept watch.

Several large green parrots emerged from somewhere out of view, cautiously hop/walking towards the sleeping vehicle. The tracker's muffled giggling could be heard in the background as two of the birds fluttered up onto Jazz's bonnet, followed by a third which alighted on his roof. A fourth started nibbling on a mudflap while the others sidled up to a front tire.

"_Hey Jazz! Wakeup!"  
_A sleepy _"Huh, wha...?"_ was heard from the Porsche, followed by a started _"Ghyaa! Getoff!" _

Jazz lunged upright into robot mode, shaking off three of the kea and hopping from foot to foot and swinging his arms in a futile attempt to dislodge the fourth, which was clinging to his back, screeching and flapping it's wings in delight. _"I'm gonna kill ya Hound!" _The Special Ops officer yelped as he took off running, a half a dozen kea in hot pursuit of their new play thing. Hound could be heard in the background, sounding like he was going to kill himself laughing.

"Great one Hound! You should make some stills of that for the trophy room." Smokescreen chuckled.  
"Not if he don't wanna wake up in the Dino's lair he won't." Jazz replied darkly, but grinned to show he was just teasing.

"Y' still haven't said how y'all got conned inta bein' painted up like that." Ironhide pointed out. Hound and Jazz exchanged a somewhat sheepish glance. "Well, y'see," Jazz began, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, "there was this girl…"

That was as far as he got before the room erupted into laughter.

"Ah never though Ah'd see th' day when ol' Mr. Smooth got 'imself sweet-talked." Ironhide guffawed, almost doubled over in mirth.  
"Extenuatin' circumstances dude, extenuating circumstances." Jazz protested.  
"How so?" Prowl queried, a chuckle threatening to break through his restraint.

"Kiri, wasn't she?" Jazz asked Hound. Hound nodded. "Yeah, well, Kiri was leadin' th' Kapa Haka, that's a Maori cultural dance group, when we visited Rotorua, an' when th' men in her troop showed us th' haka, we wanted t' learn it. 'Cept she said that we had t' get moko first so we did, and yeah." He shrugged.  
Tracks frowned. "What's the haka?" He queried.

"War dance." Jazz grinned. "Back in th' day, an' at th' rugby matches now a days, it basically was showin' off th' strength o' th' iwi, the tribe. Real impressive if ya can pull it off."  
"Can you show us?" Bumblebee asked.  
Jazz shrugged. "Why not? C'mon Hound."

A space was cleared in the center of the lounge and the two Autobots stood side by side. "I'll kick it off, 'k Hound?" Jazz asked.  
"Fine with me." Hound replied.  
"Cool."

Jazz took a deep pull through his vents and silently counted out the beat to himself, then his whole demeanor changed as he roared out the challenge. "Kia mahau! Kia mahau! Hi!" Hound joined his voice to the powerful chant, both mechs moving through the actions with a stately power, slapping their forearms, thighs and chests and stamping their feet in an intimidating display. Several Autobots actually flinched.

"Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora! Ka Ora! Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora! Ka Ora! Tenei te ta ngata puhuru huru nana nei i tiki mai. Whakawhiti te ra. A upane ka upane! A upane kaupane whiti te ra! Hi!"

When it was over, there was a moment's stunned silence before a resounding chorus of applause.

"Y'all need t' git it all down fer Lilt back on Cybertron." Ironhide suggested. "Y'know how she loves tales 'bout other planets."  
"Yeah, she absolutely adores Kup's war stories." Bluestreak chimed in. "Dunno why though, 'cause I've kinda thought that if you've heard one you've heard them all, but I guess because she's a historian or whatever she likes that kind of stuff and I've never really had time for stories, guess I can't sit still long enough, heh."  
"Well, we got stuff that'll keep her happy fer weeks!" Jazz enthused. "Roll th' holograms Hound. It's time fer some home movies!"

Fin

Notes on pronunciations

-Vowels  
A- as in car  
E- as in air  
I- as in me  
O- as in too  
U- as in you

'Wh' makes a 'f' sound, and 'nga' sounds more like nasal 'na' sound

'Tiki Tour' is local slang for a trip or detour taken just to see what was there


End file.
